Bioeconomy School (3rd edition)
Science, Economics, Business and Society

Villa del Grumello, Como, Italy, April 14-18, 2025

The increasing importance of Life Sciences for the creation of value-added compounds in many economic sectors contributed to the rise of the now popular term “Bioeconomy”, referring to “the set of economic activities relating to the invention, development, production and use of biological products and processes” (OECD, 2009). These activities are characterized by the focus on the reduction of environmental pollution and on the adoption of sustainable practices. Since new scientific advancements in Biology and Biotechnology can be applied to an increasing number of fields, the Bioeconomy revolution is expected to provide solutions and benefits for a wide variety of human necessities, such as health care (e.g., biopharmaceuticals), agriculture (e.g., bio-pesticides), industrial processes (e.g., bio-refineries and biopolymers) and environmental sustainability (e.g., bioremediation), in both developing and developed countries.

However, the positive impacts of a knowledge-based Bioeconomy will not unfold automatically. The Bioeconomy transformation asks for enormous creativity, from both technology-driven and social entrepreneurs, together with normative considerations concerning the design and implementation of tailored public policies and the effective regulation of complex economic systems, characterized by the emergence of new markets and business models requiring actors with novel, advanced and heterogeneous competences.

The aim of this Bioeconomy School is to offer to PhD students, young scholars and researchers from different disciplines an overview of the main scientific topics and of the related advanced competences that are necessary to understand and govern the Bioeconomy transformation. The program offers a set of multi-disciplinary lectures, organized in sub-modules, ranging from the introduction to the basic scientific toolbox used in Biosciences and Economics, to the discussion of more specific case studies related to ongoing research and innovation projects (e.g. NODES, ProPla, MeatFromWood, PET2Poly). Mastering these aspects is expected to be relevant for entrepreneurs, public institutions and researchers working on these topics. Besides the classes, the instructors will provide mentoring sessions to the participants, with feedback on their research interests and ongoing works.

The school will be held at Villa del Grumello, Como (Italy), during the week of April 14-18, 2025.

This will be the 3^rd edition of the Bioeconomy School, after the 1^st edition – BSNE Bioeconomy school: from basic science to a new economy (held online on May 24-28, 2021) and the 2^nd edition – BTSE The Bioeconomy Transformation: Science, Economics, Business and Society (held in person at Villa del Grumello, Como (Italy), on June 5-9, 2023)

The Bioeconomy school is part of the project NODES which has received funding from the MUR – M4C2 1.5 of PNRR funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU (Grant agreement no. ECS00000036).

This Bioeconomy school also benefits from the financial support of the MUR (Italian Ministry of University and Research) Grant ‘Progetto Dipartimenti di Eccellenza 2023-2027, CUP J37G22000330001’, DiEco, University of Insubria and from the INSUBRIA INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL – IISS.

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